Overview

Scope and Content

Photograph album, loose photographic prints, slide transparencies, photographic negatives, printed materials, newspaper clippings, and videotape documenting the history of Love Field airport.

Love Field is owned and operated by the City of Dallas Department of Aviation.  It is named for Lieutenant Moss L. Love, who was killed during a training flight at San Diego, California, on September 4, 1913.  The airfield was developed by private business entities and the first flights began in January 1917.  On October 19, 1917, Love Field was leased to the United States Army as an air training base.  After World War I, the airfield was again used for commercial business. In 1927, the City purchased 167 acres of the field and passenger service began.  Major additions to the land were acquired in 1931 (from the development Love Field Acres) and 1941.  The airport presently rests on 1,300 acres of land and serves eight million passengers a year.  Its airport code is DAL.

Love Field became an army field again in 1942 and served during World War II as headquarters for the United States Air Transport Command (the strategic airlift component of the United States Army Air Forces).  The facilities were greatly expanded by the Army Air Corps before transferring back to the City of Dallas.  By 1964, Love Field was the largest air terminal in the southwest. 

Several airlines served Love Field, including Air Central, American Airlines, American Freighter, Braniff International Airways, Capital Airlines, Central Airlines, Eastern Air Lines, Legend Airlines, Ozark Air Lines, Saturn Airways, SeaPort Airlines, Slick Airways, Southern Air Transport, Trans-Texas Airways, and United Airlines.

Growth of air traffic in Texas led to the establishment of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in 1974 and the sudden reversal of Love Field's prominence.  By the next year, Love Field had lost all its carriers except Southwest Airlines to the new facility.  

Braniff International was once Love Field's largest carrier. It started flying there in the early 1930s, but it relocated most of its flights to DFW when that airport opened in January 1974.  Braniff kept flying from Love Field until its collapse in May 1982.

In 1979, when the Civil Aeronautics Board ordered all carriers to use the new airport, Southwest, an intrastate carrier, refused to do so and won a lawsuit to continue using Love Field.  Further restrictions on flights included the Shelby and Wright Amendments, in which Federal law prohibited Southwest Airlines from providing direct flights between Love Field and any point beyond Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mississippi, and Alabama. 

The collection includes a hand-mounted photographic album documenting the “Flyin’ Frolic,” an air show that took place at Love Field in November 1918, prior to the City of Dallas’ purchase of the airfield in 1923.  The album, presumably photographed and assembled by Ray Huffines, U.S. Army Aerial Photo Section No. 38, documents the buildings of Love Field, air shows and aircraft activities, and daily life for soldiers at the airfield.  The album was partially dismantled and loose prints are in a separate folder.  A separate series of loose photographic prints, in both black-and-white and color, includes a number of subjects relating to aircraft, structures, and daily activities at the airport from the 1920s to the 1980s, and special events taking place at Love Field, such as a historical reenactment of Charles Lindbergh’s flight and visits to Dallas by several United State Presidents on Air Force One.  Expansion, renovation, and construction of the airport facility during the 1970s and 1980s is also documented.  There is also a set of slides about the history of Love Field, as well as a ¾” Beta-format videotape on Love Field titled Aviation - Then & Now produced for broadcast on local Dallas cable access channels.

Paper materials consist of 

• printed promotional materials regarding the airport
• its operations and history from 1960 and 1987 (including Dallas Love Field 70th Anniversary items)
• a photocopy of a 1932 ordinance on airport operations
• studies and papers about Dallas Love Field, 1950-1986
• biographical information on Lt. Moss Lee Love
• newspaper and magazine clippings on Love Field, 1929-1993
• airport postcards

Organization

The collection is composed of two major series, visual materials and paper-based materials. The photographs series are arranged by subject matter and by format, and the paper materials by subject matter.

Access

The hand-mounted photographic album documenting the "Flyin' Frolic" materials are fragile, and access to them is restricted.  The images are all available for viewing on the Portal to Texas History.  

Permission to publish, reproduce, distribute, or use by any and all other current or future methods or procedures must be obtained in writing from the Dallas Municipal Archives.  All rights are reserved and retained regardless of current or future development or laws that may apply to fair use standards.

Citation

Love Field Photographs and Files, 1918-1993 (Box <x>, Folder <y>), Dallas Municipal Archives

Related Materials

Collection 1991-099—Love Field, 1923-1941, 1966, 1987, 1996

Index Terms

Aeronautics -- Texas -- Dallas -- History
Airports -- Texas -- Dallas Metropolitan Area -- History
Dallas -- Texas -- History
Dallas Love Field
Dallas Love Field -- History -- Pictorial works

Container List